Berlin and Warsaw strive to establish the cause of this massive pollution of the ODER, whose magnitude was revealed in mid-August.
Le Monde
Berlin and Warsaw strive to establish the cause of this massive pollution of the ODER, whose magnitude was revealed in mid-August. The German and Polish authorities declared, Monday August 22, suspecting a toxic algae to be largely responsible for the death of more than 100 tonnes of fish in the river which crosses the two countries.
“The exams conducted so far have confirmed the presence of” toxic “algae Prymnesium parvum”, explained the vice-minister of the Polish environment, Jacek Ozdoba, on Twitter .
On the German side, the latest results of “The Leibniz Institute and the University of Vienna confirm the suspicion that mass development of a toxic alga could be responsible for the death of fish”, added a carrier Word of the German Ministry of the Environment, Andreas Kübler, during a regular press conference in Berlin. The spokesperson, however, stressed that the causes explaining such a massive death of fish and mussels were “multiple”.
abnormal salinity of the river
The incriminated microalgue, also called “golden algae”, is frequent in estuaries and is normally developed in healthy waters with a lower salt content than the sea. If it has been able to proliferate at this point in the fresh waters of The ODER, this reveals an abnormal salinity of the river, which could have industrial causes, pointed the spokesperson. The high level of salt can also have been favored by the low water level and high temperatures, according to experts.
From German and Polish sides, chemical substances were very early suspected of having played a role. The Polish Environment Minister Anna Moskwa, however, had said that “none of the samples tested so far” had “shown” toxic substances “.
The disaster has somewhat set relations between the two countries. Germany has thus accused Poland of having delayed informing it about the extent of the pollution. On Saturday, Anna Moskwa warned, on twitter , against “a new” fake news “broadcast in Germany”, after the Minister of the Environment of the Brandenburg had issued the pesticide hypothesis in the water.
The Polish minister parallel with previous declarations of the authorities of this land according to which traces of mercury had been identified in water, a statement which had not been verified.
In Poland, the government found itself in the fire of criticism for not having taken rapid measures. The first reports of the massive death of fish in the ODER were made by residents and fishermen at the Polish line from July 28. In recent years, the ODER has been known to be a relatively clean river, with about forty species of fish living there.